For a Moment, Dagmar Didn't Know Wher...

Thousand+ Words a Day for October 30, 2025

For a moment, Dagmar didn’t know where he was, only that he was overheated.

Then he remembered.

He pulled the Velcro-grip straps that were holding him to the bunk and allowed himself to float upward in the zero gravity of the spacecraft. He liked sleeping in zero gee; all the experts said he was going to decalcify his bones sleeping that way, but he liked it, and the more he did it, the more difficult it was for him to drift off in gravity—even in the 0.84 gravity that the station’s gravity generators made.

Dagmar groped his way to the environmental station, placed his feet on the textured pads, and activated the generators. He groaned as his body weight came down on his legs and feet, and his heart rate accelerated as his heart discovered that now it would be required to start pumping blood against a resistance.

As the gravity came on, his brain oriented itself to having the deck under him be understood to be the floor. The various placards and postings around the spacecraft were positioned that way, so now it appeared to him that he was standing in a very small room, a room with padded walls, a room crowded with complicated-looking equipment.

Through a small window to his left, the reflected light of the daylight side of Earth far below him streamed in; Dagmar turned his head to look and saw the coastline of Africa through light clouds. From his perspective, the terminator was stationary and the Earth was very slowly rotating into it—but he could not perceive this rotation visually. It was like trying to discern the movement of an hour hand on a clock—you knew that the hour hand must be moving, and hour hands are moving, but it’s too slow to see. One must look away, get busy doing something else, and then when one looks back, the hour hand will have moved. Likewise, Dagmar would get busy checking the air chemistry or changing the filters on the water packs or restocking the larder or doing any of the dozens of small tasks that were necessary to keep things going on the spaceship, and when he would happen to look through the window again, Africa would have moved.

With a practiced motion, he flipped open a small door at about head level, plucked out a water pack, and placed it in a heater made for the purpose of heating the water packs. While the water heated, he put three small spoonfuls of instant coffee in a foam cup, added one small spoonful of sweetner, and then retrieved the water pack, now hot to the touch, opened the corner of it, and poured the water into the cup. He dropped the now-empty pack—it fell to the floor—and he picked up the cup and stepped over to the small table. Sitting down, he sipped; the coffee that the water had turned into was less hot than he had expected it to be, but just as well, since by virtue of being well less than scalding, he could drink more of it, swallow it, and perhaps the effects of the caffeine would be felt sooner than if he were sipping the coffee. Two more large swallows and the cup was empty.

Whether it was the coffee, the gravity, his movements, or some combination of the three, Dagmar started to feel more awake and aware of his surroundings. He sighed and spoke: “Ship, display status.”

In response to this command, the tabletop upon which his empty foam coffee cup sat brightened and then a single-page graphic representation of the overall status of the spacecraft appeared. Information detailing the environment, positioning and speed, fuel, batteries, cargo—all of the critical systems of the ship were presented for an immediate analysis and understanding. More detailed information on any of these systems and several other less-critical ones could be accessed from here, and if there had been any Level 3 or Level 2 problems, those would be specifically presented. Any Level 1 problems and the ship would have roused him from his sleep. But there were no such problems; the ship was operating as normal, as it usually did.

The tabletop display indicated that there had been four radio communications received during the rest period. Three of them were from Artois Control in Mumbai; one, the most recently received, was from Helen in Montana. Dagmar touched the display at the spot were that message appeared, and the computer’s soft voice sounded: “Message processing.”

The next sound he heard was Helen’s voice. “Hey! Are you awake? It’s a nice day here today, we’re going out to the lake. Give us a couple of hours to get out there and get the boat going and then call, will you? Dieter says he’s got something to ask you. Bye!”

Dagmar looked at the time stamp of the message—it had been received 95 minutes ago. He stood, warmed up another water pack, and made a second cup of coffee. When that was done, he sat back down, activated the camera link, and called Helen’s phone.

Dieter answered, and Dagmar could see that the boy was answering from the boat. “Hey, Dad!” he said. “Can you see us?”

“Not unless you’re in western Africa.”

The boy laughed. “No, we’re at the lake.” Helen crossed the frame behind the boy.

“What are you guys doing?” Dagmar asked.

“Mom put a fishing line out, but she hasn’t caught anything. There’s a turtle following us for some reason.”

“Okay, well, put your mother on, will you?”

“Yeah, okay.” The camera view turned sideways and jerked for a few moments.

Then the phone straightened up and Helen’s face appeared. She was tanned and she wore large sunglasses and a big floppy hat. “Hi, honey,” she said. “Did you sleep alright?”

Dagmar shrugged. “I guess so. What time is it by you?”

“Oh, it’s one fifteen or so. I got a call from Tom Slater in Mumbai yesterday. Did you know that Phyllis is going to be replacing you?”

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